'99 & up 7.3L Power Stroke Engine and DrivetrainDiscussion of the '99 & up 7.3L Power Stroke diesel engine and drivetrain in the 1999-Up Super Duty trucks and Excursions. No gas engine discussion allowed except on transmissions and drivetrain that pertain to all models. Please confine discussion of topics in this forum to those items that are specific to the 7.3L Power Stroke engine.

Been working on the truck for several days changing the turbine housing. Go for a short test drive, in which the exhaust collector is leaking and blows smoke and soot all over the engine compartment, and hear a really wierd noise, like I heard with the DIY Intake when I put it on, like a huge turbo surge, then the battery light comes on.

I had my lard self laying on the truck a 100,000 times and another post sparked that it may be the wires on the top of the alternator shorting out, I checked them, but they look fine, not frayed, fried or anything...

Any ideas on why this would have come on... The truck starts and runs fine, ran the headlights for a long time, didn't run down batteries, but I know it would take a while...

Should I just have the alt tested? Sometimes I don't trust the guys and their machines at the parts store...

Might be coincidence that the battery light comes on now after you have been working on the engine but my guess is that you leaned on a terminal or something that is causing your problem. I would check all of the connections especially around where you were working to see if maybe you pulled a connection apart, strained some wire(s), etc.

Could be the alternator is bad...could be the voltage regulator on the alternator, but yes it should be alternator/battery related...get a volt meter on your batteries with the truck off..should be about 12 volts or so...then turn the truck on and it should kick up to around 14 volts or so.....if it doesn't kit up....alternator....

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Could be the alternator is bad...could be the voltage regulator on the alternator, but yes it should be alternator/battery related...get a volt meter on your batteries with the truck off..should be about 12 volts or so...then turn the truck on and it should kick up to around 14 volts or so.....if it doesn't kit up....alternator....

-Casey

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Great tip, Casey. This is a handy test to remember. Quick, and you can do it yourself at home. My grandfather taught me the same test... holds true every time I've tested it.

Greg, I'm curious.... could you do the above test and see what you find? Just for my own reference, if you wouldn't mind. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

With the alternator...I had the one on my gf's 4runner bench tested a while back because the car died on us going up I-5 and it checked out at 100% good...put it back on her car with new battery fired it up and in 20 minutes it was dead again....take the alternator back down there, passes bench test with flying colors again...bought a new alternator anyway, put the new one on, charged the batteries....car hasn't died since and that was at least 8 months ago.

[ QUOTE ]
With the alternator...I had the one on my gf's 4runner bench tested a while back because the car died on us going up I-5 and it checked out at 100% good...put it back on her car with new battery fired it up and in 20 minutes it was dead again....take the alternator back down there, passes bench test with flying colors again...bought a new alternator anyway, put the new one on, charged the batteries....car hasn't died since and that was at least 8 months ago.

-Casey

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That's how it goes... The batteries HAVE started dying now. I'm going to take it off and have it tested on the bench, if it passes, I may buy one anyway.

In which case I would have to take it off anyway... I'll try to round up a voltmeter, but like I said the one I have is a piece of crap. lol

I would like to test it myself, then see what they say about it...

We'll see, I appreciate the help, hope I can get it figured out tonite, I'm supposed to run it on the Dyno tomorrow with the CO PSD Club guys and gals.... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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